


i'll run with you

by smirkovskiy



Category: Dancing with the Stars (US) RPF
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, F/M, Not!Fic, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-23
Updated: 2016-03-23
Packaged: 2018-05-28 13:41:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6331414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smirkovskiy/pseuds/smirkovskiy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Val’s always been something of a romantic.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'll run with you

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed be a slooooow burn, but I lost interest and never finished.
> 
> Some dialogue is taken from rehearsal footage, interviews, and episodes.
> 
> The descriptions of what the bead colors symbolize came from [this](http://nullrefer.com/?http://mittentegirl.tumblr.com/post/87914157506/for-those-interested-here-are-the-meanings) tumblr post.
> 
> Title from “Let’s Dance,” by David Bowie (or, rather, the cover by M. Ward).

_i’ll run with you._  
— “Let’s Dance,” David Bowie

Val’s never been this nervous to meet his celebrity partner before. He wasn’t even this nervous when he met Kelly—whom he’d known of, vaguely, mostly thanks to her Playboy photoshoot but, really, who didn’t?—and everyone knows how _that_ turned out. 

The producers had chosen to keep him in the dark about his partner this time, for whatever reason, and maybe that was why he was so damn nervous. Maybe they’d given him the dud, an old or slow contestant that was the polar opposite of Kelly. Someone he’d have a hard time forging a connection with.

He and Kelly had had so much chemistry and passion, they practically left a trail of fire on the dance floor. Val can’t even begin to imagine how he’ll ever top that.

Val steps into the elevator, tucks his iPod ear buds into his ears, and pushes the button for the lobby. Just as the doors are about to shut, a large hand shoots between them and pries them open.

An imposing mountain of a man steps in, still holding the elevator doors open with his meaty hand, motioning to someone trailing behind him.

“C’mon, Daya, hurry up, we don’t have all day.”

A girl slips between the elevator doors, muttering hasty apologies to the man that Val assumes is probably her handler.

Val gives her a once over and tries not to be too obvious about it. She’s tall, almost as tall as he is, with long, dark brown hair and, _Christ_ , she’s breathtakingly gorgeous. He can’t help but stare at her, just a little bit.

She looks up then and they meet gazes. Val smiles a little and nods at her; the girl smiles back.

“Hey.” Val nods again, feeling obvious, like his fascination with her is written all over his face.

“Hey,” she mimics him, laughing.

The big guy shifts a little closer and places a hand on her shoulder, almost possessively. Val wonders if he’s her bodyguard or something, and hastily shelves any and all plans to flirt. The man looks like he could snap Val in half with his bare hands.

Val turns his attention back to his iPod, and tries to put the girl out of his mind. He has more important things to be worrying about, anyway.

The girl gets off on the second floor, and Val is certain she tosses him a glance over her shoulder as she leaves. He watches her—while trying not to look like he’s watching—and he swears she smiles at him before turning and looping her arm through the elbow of her companion.

Val sighs. It’s not like he’ll ever see her again, so there’s no point in dwelling. He gets off on the next floor and hurries to his trailer to drop off his iPod, hastily fix his hair—before deciding to hide it under a knit beanie—and head over to the rehearsal studio where he’ll be meeting his celebrity partner.

When he arrives, he finds the studio completely empty—save the camera crew, a few makeup artists, and a couple production assistants, of course. A makeup artist takes Val to his trailer and dabs his face with concealer, cleverly covering up an old scar on his cheek while he devours a donut and downs a Styrofoam cup of bitter, excruciatingly hot coffee for breakfast.

Once he’s all prettied up, Val heads into the studio to wait for his partner.

The door to the rehearsal studio opens a few short minutes later and _it’s her_. The girl from the elevator. Val can hardly believe his luck; the gorgeous girl he’d run into on his way to the studio just so happens to be his new dance partner. 

She’s seriously the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen. His first instinct is to flirt with her a little, flash some of the Valentin charm her way. All it usually takes is a wink or a smirk and then his celeb partners are like putty in his hands, soft pliable clay for him to mold and shape. This girl will be no different, he’s sure of it. 

People always say your life flashes before your eyes when you’re about to die, snatches of images, conversations, emotions flitting through your mind’s eye at breakneck speed. Very different images flash through Val’s mind when he lays his eyes on this girl, though. 

They look at each other for a few too-long seconds, as Val wonders if it would be too forward to hug her, before she opens her arms and takes a few halting steps toward him.

“Hug it out, hug it out?” She hikes her eyebrows at him in question and lifts her arms.

Val hesitates for just a moment before pulling her into his arms, firmly against his chest. Her hair brushes against his cheek and he catches a whiff of something fruity, a sweet berry fragrance.

They break the awkward embrace a little too quickly for Val’s liking. When she pulls back, he gets another look at her up close. She’s just as beautiful as he’d originally thought, maybe more so. He can’t wait to get to work with this girl, in every sense of the word.

“You’re very beautiful,” he says, and immediately wishes he could hop in a time machine and go back a few minutes to kick himself in the ass for ever thinking it was a good idea to start out with that. “How old are you?”

“I’m sixteen.”

The girl puts her hands on her hips and raises her eyebrows at him again, and it’s like she’s right there in his head with him and knows _exactly_ what he’d been thinking. Maybe she can read minds or something. 

Val throws up a hand and reels his words back in, even though it’s far too late for that. “I—I take that back.”

Disappointment—and maybe even a little relief—washes over him as he realizes how young she really is. He won’t have to worry about getting too close to this girl. As beautiful as she is—and she _is_ beautiful, stunningly so—he doesn’t mess with teenagers. Teenagers that pretty usually come with overprotective dads anyway, and Val dealt with his fair share during his own teenage years. Fuck if he’s going to mess with some kid and incur the wrath of her parents just because she’s beautiful.

They launch into a quick impromptu rehearsal after their awkward introduction, and Val is able to push aside his initial disappointment and embarrassment, slip on the mask and become Val the teacher, the leader. 

The girl—Zendaya—is definitely talented, but he can tell from just a few minutes of practice that she still has a lot to learn. Val is determined to become the third most important person in her life behind her parents. 

He is going to become her teacher.

-

His initial attraction to her doesn’t exactly disappear after that first meeting like he’d hoped, but at least it’s dulled into something he can easily push aside or ignore. It’s always still there, though, like an ember in his chest that flares whenever she performs a particularly elegant move, or sends a sweet smile his way. 

This week, after a couple successful dances that had earned good scores, they’ll be dancing the Viennese waltz. The Viennese waltz seems to be made especially for Zendaya’s long, lanky limbs, and she moves so gracefully, so hypnotically that Val has to remind himself that he isn’t supposed to be so entranced by her. He isn’t supposed to want to slide in behind Zendaya while she’s practicing and whirl her around on the polished hardwood floor and dip her like they’re partners in more than just dance.

He isn’t supposed to want to with her what he’d had with Kelly.

It had been different with _her_. They’d both immediately recognized the passion that surged between them in waves and took advantage of it, riding it all the way to the finals.

Sure, they’d played it up a little bit for the cameras, but what happened between them _was_ real. Everything Val felt, every emotion and every ounce of passion and desire that he poured into their routines was genuine. 

They had been so entangled with one another for so long that it was easy for him to forget she actually had a boyfriend, had a life outside the show. Sometimes, he’d let himself entertain thoughts of Kelly leaving that boyfriend for him, becoming his in every way that mattered. It was so easy for him to picture Kelly fitting into his life after the show was over, like a puzzle piece slotting perfectly into place. 

Val’s always been something of a romantic.

After, though, things changed. They drifted apart as their schedules got the better of them, and soon they were limited to only a few stolen moments here and there. Their bond strained under the stress of maintaining a long distance relationship, with he and Kelly often on separate coasts. Everything looked far more different under the harsh lights of reality.

Then the pictures Kelly had posted of their time together disappeared slowly from her Instagram, as if she was surgically removing all evidence of Val from her life, replaced with happy shots of her and that goddamn boyfriend. The phone calls and Skype dates and texts grew less and less frequent and more and more vague until, finally, Kelly told him she was happy with her boyfriend now, that they’d paved over whatever problems they’d been having when she partnered with Val, and he needed to move on.

After Kelly—A.K., stamped in his mind like an epoch in time—he’d vowed never to fall for another partner. It was unprofessional, for one, and messy. So, so damn messy.

At least, with Zendaya, he knows he won’t have that problem, knows he won’t have to worry about getting in too deep too fast. He won’t let himself want her the way he’d wanted Kelly. He won’t have to worry at all.

-

Val presents Zendaya with a set of evil eye bracelets a few days after they perform their Viennese waltz. 

He can tell she’d been disappointed by the scores and some of the judges’ comments, that she’d wanted the dance to be perfect for her grandmother and it wasn’t. She’s been quiet and maybe even a little sullen, not as chatty or bright as usual, so Val slips a couple of his evil eye bracelets off his own wrist and pockets them, intending to give them to Zendaya as a gift during rehearsals for their samba.

He picks dark blue and black for her, out of his many colors. Fitting for their dance partnership, Val thinks, as he waits for Zendaya to arrive. When he slips a hand into his pocket, the beads brush against his fingertips, cool and smooth like tiny pebbles.

Zendaya shows up a few minutes early, parents in tow, a Louis Vuitton bag slung over her shoulder. Her mom and dad greet Val warmly with broad smiles and firm handshakes, and then Zendaya throws her bag on the floor and hugs him unexpectedly, her long arms wrapping around his neck.

“Thank you.”

“What’s this for?” Val asks, laughing, patting her on the back.

“For Monday,” she says, finally slipping away. She doesn’t elaborate; she doesn’t have to.

Zendaya smiles at Val and he can’t help but smile back. “That was all you, baby,” he says, exaggerating his Jersey-tinged accent for her benefit. 

Zendaya giggled and turns to pick up her bag, but Val reaches out and touches the back of her hand. When Zendaya glances at him, he slips his hand out of his pocket, the bracelets wrapped around his fingers.

“What’re these?” Zendaya eyes the bracelets and then his outstretched hand.

“They’re evil eyes, for luck, protection,” Val explains, taking her hand gently in his and slipping the bracelets on her wrist. “Blue protects fate, karma, and helps calm chaos and turmoil and keeps communication flowing. Black protects power and prosperity. It also prepares you for the unknown, for mystery.”

Zendaya looks back down at the bracelets and touches the beads with the tip of her fingernail. 

“They’re cool, I like them,” she says, glancing back up at Val. She smiles, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Got a lot of protection going on here.” She tosses a glance over her shoulder at her dad, who’s sitting in a corner of the studio, flipping through a tabloid magazine.

Val laughs. “Ain’t nothing gonna happen to you, girl, not with these on,” he says, touching the back of her wrist lightly.

“Thanks.” Zendaya looks away and scuffs her foot on the hardwood.

Val glances up; the camera crews have set up around them and they’re waiting on the two of them. He steps out of her space and coughs lightly, clapping his hands to get her attention. “Okay. Moving on to the samba...”

-

The two of them, Val and Zendaya, operate without a hitch until they draw the Argentine tango for week five. Val’s never choreographed or performed the Argentine tango for the show, and he knows Zendaya sure as hell hasn’t. Not only that, it’s a seriously sexy, sensual dance. He can’t exactly run his hands over the body of a sixteen year old girl or pull her tightly against him like the dance requires, and certainly not on national TV. 

When he digs up Youtube clips of past Argentine tango performances on the show, he can’t help the pang of regret that throbs in his chest. It’s a beautiful dance, pulsing with intensity, passion, and desire. It’s meant to be felt— _experienced_ —not only by the performers but also by the audience. How the hell is he going to fit all of that into a performance with a _child_ and still keep it age appropriate?

If she’d been just a year older, he probably could have gotten away with a lot more, as far as costuming and choreography go. Derek and Shawn had performed a lot of sexy dances and she’d donned some revealing outfits, and Shawn had only been seventeen. Then again, Shawn hadn’t also been a Disney starlet. 

Val sighs and closes his laptop, shoving it back into his bag.

“Hey, what’s up?”

Val looks up; Zendaya clops into the rehearsal studio, heels clicking on the hardwood. She drops her bag next to Val’s and sits beside him, tucking her long legs under her thin frame.

Val leans back against the wall and crosses his legs. He lets his heel tap against the floor in a nervous staccato.


End file.
